Mavericks in Marinara Sauce
by Random Force
Summary: This is a rather un-Megaman-ish self insert fic. My friends made me do it. You've been warned.
1. Prologue

This story started out as thirteen sentences in a notebook that I wrote before I really knew what I was doing. I scribbled it down one day when I was bored and two weeks later my friend Zebuhachi goes through my note book, spots the wonder-story and says, "Ooh, this is cool, it has Zero in it! Write more!" So I wrote more. 25 pages more. Then I put my own character in it. Then I wrote 40 more pages. The monster is still growing. It's not even very Megaman X-ish anymore. It just has X and Zero in it. So I'm just taking this moment to blame Zebuhachi for this whole mess. She's the one who made me post it. Flog her with the mackerel.  
  
Anyway, enjoy the happy madness that has become Mavericks in Marinara sauce. And, in the wise, squeaky words of the noble four year old Megaman X, "Time to get serious!"  
  
Oh, BTW, no posting comments like "this story sucks". Constructive comments welcome. Hey, at least I can spell… 


	2. Chapter 1

centerMAVERICKS IN MARINARA SAUCEbr  
  
An epic story of great courage (sorta), true love (ha!), and other random crap (lots)br  
  
font size=1Oh, hey, look, little print! Cool! Yeah, this is the lovely copyright, and it's not for the Capcom junk, 'cause you already know who that belongs to. This is for ime/i. The lovely characters and personalities of Random, Thaw, Seraph, Lenny and Mab the chicken-cat are mine. If you touch them I will, unfortunately, be forced to nail your head to my modem as a warning to others. The characters of Zebuhachi and Sasha belong to the lovely Zebu, and if you steal them you will, unfortunately, be forced to negotiate strenuously./centerbr  
  
font size=3  
  
"Déjà vu, X."  
  
"Shut up, Zero."  
  
"We're about to die, so you could be more polite."  
  
"Shut up, Zero."  
  
"It's bad enough that we're going to die, but did you have to drag Zebu into it?"  
  
"Shut up, Zero!"  
  
Maverick Hunter Zebuhachi wiggled her toes thoughtfully. "Actually, I kind of enjoy hanging by my wrists over bottomless drops."  
  
Zero half-grinned and waved his hands inside the manacles holding them. "Was that sarcasm? It's so hard to tell sometimes."  
  
X fumed quietly. Only Zero could make jokes about their situation. Here they were, the three of them, possibly the best Maverick Hunting team there was, prisoners in the Maverick Head Quarters, about to face scary death at the hands of a twisted Mr. Clean wanna-be. The three plasma based reploids were hanging by their wrists, imprisoned by magnetic manacles that sapped their strength and made teleport impossible. He blinked his eyes against a sudden energy drain and looked down into the abyss. The wide pit they were dangling over at the moment could very well be bottomless. X sighed in humiliation. They had come here with the intention of attacking Sigma and Vile, the Maverick leaders. Instead they had been kidnapped by Vile himself. The irony made X sick. Or maybe it was the burritos he'd had for lunch. It was hard to tell.  
  
Mavericks were bad news, for humans and reploids alike. Mavericks were reploids gone bad. Reploids were originally created to help humans, kinda like robots with free will, but an evil virus, known as the Sigma virus, had turned several reploids into human-hating Mavericks. X, Zero and Zebuhachi were Maverick Hunters. They killed them for a living. X thought it was a job. Zero thought it was fun. The infamous crimson reploid known as Zero loved Mavericks. He especially loved the crunching noise they made when you smashed them, and the dramatic flames they made when they exploded. Zero wasn't blood-thirsty. Everybody knows reploids don't have blood.  
  
Who knows what Zebu thought of the whole business. Zebu was a sweet girl. Depending on how you looked at it. She liked Maverick inner-fluids, as long as it didn't get on her armor. She was like that. Her armor was spotless white with purple trim. Her personality was like that too; perfect, with a little weirdness thrown in for good measure. Zebu was a very powerful reploid, but once you had seen her hanging by her wrists on a wall, you started to wonder. It was hard to tell if she was really worried or not. She appeared to be sleeping.  
  
This was too much for X. "What are you doing?" He screeched.  
  
Zebu opened her eyes. "Sleeping."  
  
X screeched again, making his friends wince. "Sleeping? How can you sleep at a time like this? Don't you realize where we are?"  
  
Zebu nodded.  
  
X choked.  
  
"Someone forgot to take his Prozac again," Zero muttered. "Relax, X. You don't have to be so cranky."  
  
"Cranky?" X screeched for a third time. Suddenly his voice dropped to a hiss. "We're about to be roasted alive over a flaming maverick. Or maybe they'll make chew toys for Violen out of us. Or let Vile use us for target practice. Or let Overdrive turn us into mutants. Or maybe they'll break our knees and let us crawl back to MHHQ. Or maybe they'll just..."  
  
"X!" Zebu wrinkled her nose and tried not to think about being turned into a mutant by everybody's favorite ostrich. "If I wasn't hanging by my arms, I would slap you."  
  
"Shame on you. Grown hunters fighting amongst themselves? I'm shocked." The three hunters' heads swiveled in unison toward the speaker. The purple and blue armored reploid lounged against a wall, probably smirking under his expressionless blue helmet.  
  
"Vile!" X gasped.  
  
"Boba Fett!" Zero gushed like a schoolgirl. "Imagine meeting you here! How nice! We're kind of busy right now, so why don't you go chase a wookie. Good lad."  
  
Vile remained motionless. "Insults will get you nowhere. I'm not here to banter with you."  
  
Zero's smirk widened into a taunting grin. "What? I thought this was the Maverick HQ guided tour. I must be in the wrong place. If you let us go, we'll just find the rest of our group and toddle on outta here."  
  
Beside Zero, X groaned.  
  
Vile almost purred. "But if I let you go, you'll drop. For a long time." Vile swiveled his shoulder cannon and shot a plasma blast into the abyss. The ball of fire went down... and down... and down... The trio of prisoners watched it until, several seconds later, it reached the ground a mile below them, and splatted.  
  
Zero's eyes got very big.  
  
Zebu wiggled her fingers.  
  
X appeared to be choking.  
  
Vile chuckled unpleasantly.  
  
Suddenly, to everyone's surprise, Zero started to whine. "Please don't drop us, mister Vile, sir! Please!" The champion hunter struggled against his manacles, whimpering like a little kid. Zebu thought she saw some tears in Zero's eyes. X stared at the crimson wonder and started choking again. Zero began to sob. "Please, please don't kill me! I don't care about X and Zebu, but spare me! Please!"  
  
Zebu glared at him. "What was that?"  
  
Vile laughed wickedly. It grew from a chuckle to a full blown evil cackle, echoing through the abyss.  
  
Zero hung his head in defeat and sobbed a little more.  
  
Vile's laughter died a way into a mere sinister sniggering. "The champion hunter, begging me to spare his life. You know, I've always dreamed of this moment. I was considering holding you here for a while; lord knows how many hunters they'd sacrifice to get you back, but if this is how you behave in the face of true danger, they won't want you back. Farewell." Vile turned to the control panel in the wall and punched a button. Zero's manacles released, and Zero vanished into the abyss with a despairing scream. Vile did a victory dance. It wasn't a pretty sight. He bowed to the pair of remaining reploids and punched two more buttons. X and Zebu followed Zero into the chasm.  
  
~~~  
  
Zero fell in a perfect jackknife, tumbling head over heels with as much grace as he could manage. He spun his arms wildly to turn himself the right way up. He grabbed his golden ponytail in one hand and looked upwards. Zebu and X had begun their downward descent as well. He looked downwards. The distant ground was not so distant anymore. Zero smiled to himself and ignited his rocket boots. Zero was one of the lucky few reploids who had a pair of rocket boots; boots with powerful jet packs built into the bottom, designed for jumping great distances. X also had them, and Zero said a very fast prayer that X would know what to do with them. Please, X, just this once, pretend you're bright, and... Zero's feet didn't hit the ground. They came within three inches of it, and then the rocket boots launched him back into the air. With a half surprised, half triumphant yell, he flipped and landed gracefully on his head. He jumped to his feet and yelled up at his plummeting friends, "Rocket boots, X you moron!"  
  
~~~  
  
"He's alive!" Zebu screamed, not sure whether this was a good thing. "Wait... What's he saying?"  
  
X strained his ears. "Sounds like..." The light bulb lit up. "Rocket boots! He wants us to use the jet packs in our boots!"  
  
This information blitzed though Zebu's CPU. "Rocket boots? I don't have rocket boots!"  
  
On the ground, Zero was having this same revelation. "Oh crap!" He looked up at the white falling reploid, re-ignited his boots, and held out his arms. The impact was terrible. Zero gasped and Zebu screamed as the blow forced her into plasma form. She folded into a big, featureless purple blob for about .05 seconds, then she dragged herself back into human form as Zero locked his arms around her. Zero's rocket boots slammed into the ground, then ricocheted the pair of them into the air. Zero twisted his body and landed neatly on his feet. As he helped his dazed friend to stand, a wildly screaming X hit the ground on blazing heels, bounced once, flew through the air writhing like a salmon and plowed into the ground several feet away. Zero ran to him, clapped a hand over the blue bomber's mouth and picked him up by his face. "Shut up! We gotta get outta here before Vile figures out what happened to us!"  
  
Too late. A faint scream of rage from above cut Zero's sentence short. He shoved X in front of him, grabbed Zebu's hand and pulled her along. "He knows we're still alive! We're gonna have some unpleasant company down here if we don't move!"  
  
Zero selected one of the many tunnels branching off from the pit and ran. X and Zebu had no choice but to follow.  
  
~~~  
  
"I wonder where we are," X whispered. His voice echoed and crescendoed on the mildewing stone walls.  
  
Zebu shook something questionable off her boot and wrinkled her nose. "We're in a sewer."  
  
X nodded. "That makes sense. Why else would Sigma have a bottomless pit in his fortress?"  
  
"To drop helpless prisoners into?" Zebu suggested.  
  
Zero was trudging ahead, whistling to himself, splattered to his waist in sewer ooze.  
  
Zebu caught up to him. "Zeebies, you didn't really mean what you said about not caring if Vile dropped you into the pit, right?"  
  
Zero laughed and put an arm around her shoulders. "Of course not"  
  
X caught up with them, panting heavily through his open mouth. "You mean it was all a trick?"  
  
Zero clapped X on the shoulder. "Clever deduction, X m'lad. I always know you was smart."  
  
X noticed too late that the friendly shoulder pat had smeared his shoulder plate with brown goo. Zero was chuckling to himself and wiping off his hands.  
  
Zebu ignored the masculine humor going on around her and frowned in thought. "I wonder why Vile isn't following us..." She made a face at the sewer gunk. "...Besides the obvious, I mean." She looked to her companions for answers. Her companions were busy having a sewer sludge fight. She continued to muse aloud. "And I wonder how we're going to get out of here." She glanced at Zero, hoping for suggestions. Zero was standing on top of X, All that was visible of the blue bomber was a pair of wildly flailing arms. Zebu turned away and started scanning the walls and ceiling carefully. "If this is a sewer, there should be regular openings overhead..." It didn't take her long to find what she was looking for. A dark hole opened in the ceiling, exposing three rungs of a ladder fading upward into darkness. She smiled triumphantly. "Hey guys, I found a way out!"  
  
Zero and X had sunk completely into the mud by this time. Occasionally an arm or leg would burst out of the muck like some swamp beast, thrash around, then disappear again into the melee.  
  
Zebu shook her head. Men. She wrinkled her nose at the writhing brown mess. Gross. Oh well, desperate times call for desperate measures. The next time someone stuck his arm out of the mud, she grabbed it. It was Zero's arm. She dragged him off X unceremoniously. "Enough with the testosterone. We gotta go." She pointed at the ceiling.  
  
X wiped gunk from his eyes and looked up. "Hey! It's a manhole! We can get out!"  
  
Zero smiled. "See? I knew you was smart. C'mon Zeb, let's quit this two- bit dump. I'll carry you up, since you don't have jump boots."  
  
As Zero put a slimy arm firmly around her waist, Zebu heard a very strange noise. It was a very soft roaring, but it was getting louder and more ominous every second. She wrinkled her nose as a smell washed over her. It smelled like the typical sewer smell, only ten times worse, plus smoke. Zero looked at X. "What did you have for lunch, X?"  
  
X crossed his arms. "It wasn't me!"  
  
Zebu suddenly realized what it was, and nearly short-circuited. "They're burning the sewers! This whole place is about to be a furnace!"  
  
Zero tightened his grip and jumped, igniting his boots. Wet flames crackled where the jet packs touched the floor. Zebu managed to grab the lowest rung, and Zero kind of clung to her leg. She struggled to pull them both up. Zero finally scrambled onto the ladder and screamed down at X. "Get up here, hurry, damn it!"  
  
X screamed up at the same time, "Get off the lower rungs! Hurry, damn it!"  
  
At that moment, a wall of fire rounded the corner. The roar was deafening. X choked as the very air started to burn. Everything seemed to slow down as he leaped, flames chasing his heels as he ignited his boots. He grabbed frantically at the ladder, slipped, and caught himself by one hand. He swung his body upwards and scrambled up into the darkness.  
  
Zebu found the manhole cover with her head and went straight through it into the fresh night air. Zero and X burst out after her, followed by a dramatic flame spurt and a small explosion. Zero and X were both flaming nicely, due to the lovely swamp sludge smeared all over them. They danced around yelling confusedly, trying to put themselves out. It took them several minutes, and Zebu had to help Zero extinguish his hair. She flicked flaming muck off her own boots and looked around. They were in a quiet neighborhood somewhere in the city of Tokyo. Zebu had no idea where they were, but once she found a main street, it wouldn't be too hard to find MHHQ. Everyone in Kapcom knew how to get to MHHQ. Zebu set off in a random direction. "Come on guys, let's get back home. I need a bloody shower!" 


End file.
